In the wake of ever-increasing population of the world, increases in industrial activities, and continuous addition of urban centers of developing countries to the power grid, the world's energy requirements are constantly rising. Traditionally, energy is generated through the combustion of fossil fuels, reaction of nuclear elements, wind, solar, and the like.
However, many of these energy sources have serious drawbacks. For example, fossil fuels require energy to obtain, for example via mining or drilling, and often create excessive environmental pollution. Nuclear energy includes inherent risks, such as reactor failures and nuclear waste contamination of soil, water, and the like. Wind energy requires placement of windmills in areas having certain minimum wind values, which not only pose a threat to birds, but also tend to detract from the landscape views. Solar energy requires placement of panels in areas having certain minimum sunshine values, which takes up significant amounts of space and tends to detract from landscape views.
An alternative to these energy generation systems may include the placement of underwater power generators in currents, such as tidal currents. These generators may include a rotatable conduit configured to accept a flow of water, which flow may cause the conduit to rotate. The conduit may be coupled to an electrical generator, which converts the mechanical energy of the rotating conduit into electrical energy. However, these systems have drawbacks, particularly in that the system only generates electricity when the conduit rotates a certain direction. As such, each conduit unit in these systems may only be able to harness energy of the water as it flows one direction or the other, for example during one of the flood current and the ebb current. As tidal currents change direction through the day, each unit generates electricity only a portion of the day, when the tide is flowing the direction necessary to cause that unit's conduit to rotate a specific direction.
What is needed is an underwater power generation apparatus configured to capture tidal currents during both the flood current and the ebb current.